[Matt Graham]

On 2014-04-08 09:44, keith smith wrote:
> I have a MySql database that is about 10 years old. The tables are
> using the MyISAM data engine.  As I look around it seems the
> InnoDB data engine is such a better deal.  I am thinking that a
> switch to InnoDB might be the way to go

If you're using fulltext search in any of your columns, you'll probably 
have to find another way of doing that, like sphinx.  You can't really 
do fulltext search with InnoDB.  If you're not doing fulltext search, 
then the row-level locking that InnoDB provides makes inserts and 
updates a lot faster.

> Is there anything I should be aware of or any potential problems in
> using InnoDB with MySql versions prior to 5.5.5?

I've used a bunch of InnoDB tables on a bunch of mysql DBs going back 
to 5.0.51, and never had any problems with InnoDB in and of itself.  
(Disks dying, clusters split-braining, running out of disk space, people 
doing DROP DATABASE on production data, and so forth caused far more 
pain than anything InnoDB.)  The main thing I'd worry about is that it 
can take hours to convert huge tables from MyISAM to InnoDB if your 
machine's got any sort of CPU or I/O bottleneck, and while that 
conversion's going on, the table's unusable.  If you can schedule enough 
downtime, you'll probably be just fine.

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